Collection: Bernd & Hilla Becher

Bernd Becher (1931–2007) and Hilla Becher (1934–2015) were German conceptual photographers whose systematic documentation of industrial structures — water towers, blast furnaces, winding towers, gas tanks, and grain elevators — produced one of the most rigorously consistent bodies of work in postwar art. Presented in typological grids that emphasise structural comparison over individual expression, their photographs occupy a position between documentary record, sculpture, and Conceptual Art. Foundational figures of the Düsseldorf School, they taught at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1976, where their students included Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, and Candida Höfer. They received the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1990.